Livin' very small in London
The shopping is pants in London. I mean, it's GREAT, but it's pants because it's so expensive. Admittedly, I ask a lot of a pound. I ask that it do the work of AU$2.56 but it's just not up to the job. Australia is cheaper for a lot of the same things you can get here, and yet of course there's things here that you can't get in Oz but when you tally up the price, you decide you don't want it. I've discovered that very little in London can stand having it's sticker-price tripled and still be appealing.
That said, I've managed to find a few little bargains. I got some second-hand books - The Bride Stripped Bare and a Marion Keyes essay collection - for 50p each. I also got a nice jumper for Simon for £5. It's a Marks & Spencer, pure lambswool jumper that apparently costs £35 in the shop (and I'd believe it of this place. I know Simon needs a new jumper because his last favourite one has shrunk a bit. I also got myself a cute little printed t-shirt at the Marie Curie Cancer charity shop, for £3.49.
Yesterday, during a roller-blade down the side of the Thames (um, my advice- don't do this, 'cause there are COBBLES for Africa. But the roller-blade hire came free with my London Pass), I found a little market where they sold books and prints and stuff, and I found Simon a little present there. It was a little map from the 20's that is mounted on cloth and folds up into a little hardcover book. Simon loves maps and I was going to get him a globe somewhere along the line but reall, how would I get it home!
Today I also went to the Portobello Market and the only real bargains were the raspberries and strawberries, so I got a punnet of each. They were well worth it because in addition to being about the same price as in Oz they tasted better than any of the genetically engineered Franken-berries we get. I wandered around the area and found the shop Coco Ribbon which an Australian girl started up, and I nearly haemoraged at the prices there.
I thought people here must earn more money for these prices to be liveable but apparently they earn less than we do, which is a horrible thought. There was this book in the Oxfam charity shop called Hard Work and I had a flip-through and apparently the minimum wage works out to $10.75 Australian which is, in the local parlance, bollocks! I would have bought the book but it cost too much! Soon we will meet up with cousin Anth and I wonder if we might have to take him out for a good meal, I don't see how he can be feeding himself properly in this economy. He is doing some sort of junior lawyer-type thing though so perhaps he's alright.
I have been emailing Simon about wanting a little dog. I think we could have a very small one but Simon thinks we need a bigger place before we can think about it. But I know there are a lot of new dogs coming out now which are very small, and we could maybe get one of them, or a better idea is to go to the pound and get the smallest of the older dogs because then it wouldn't get bigger. Plus an old dog probably wouldn;t need as a big of a backyard because they don;t run around so much anymore. I really want a doggy!